Gotham falls to the Pride 2-0, but not without a fight

Gotham’s home opener could not have come with a more difficult opponent, and the Orlando Pride seem to be in no hurry to end their domination of the league. Gotham conceded two goals: a shocking first-minute own goal by rookie Lilly Reale under pressure after a set piece, and a penalty scored by Marta at the end of the second half. Although the Bats maintained a large amount of possession and had far more shots than the Pride, they failed to finish their chances and finished the game with a disappointing 2-0 loss. 

With one tie and one loss, Gotham’s season is not off to the strongest start, but it’s still early enough that anything is possible and there are a lot of things for fans to be happy about. The Pride is the best team in the league, and benefitted from a lot of team continuity, so a loss to them was expected, although unfortunate.

One bright side is that new Gotham players continue to have promising performances, including Lilly Reale, who made a great first start in the league despite the unfortunate early own goal. Jaelin Howell was also a standout player with 4 shots generating 0.33 total xG (the most xG by any player in this match), and seems to be thriving in a slightly more attacking central midfield role than the defensive midfielder position that she is more used to.

Gotham also has an exciting new signing in Geyse, arriving on loan from Manchester United. We break down Geyse’s profile and what she might bring to Gotham in the previous edition of the newsletter.

There was unfortunately an instance of hate speech against Barbra Banda by attendees at the game, which Gotham and the NWSL are currently investigating. Gotham’s statement reads, “We are united in our message with the NWSL and the Orlando Pride: This behavior is unacceptable and has no place in our league or in our stadiums.” The Bat Signal stands with Banda and condemns all forms of racism and transphobia.

Gotham controlled the game—but only because the Pride allowed them to?

When we look at what happened in the game, a narrative emerges: Gotham had high possession and a lot of shots, but failed to score. The Pride, on the other hand, were content to sit back and let Gotham attack, considering they were up practically the entire game. We can see just how much attack momentum Gotham had in the graph below:

“We played against the reigning champion, and we were able to control in every aspect of the game and it was on our side,” said coach Juan Carlos Amorós. “But this is football. You get the points for scoring goals, but at the end of the day, if you [perform the way we did] in most of the games, then you win most of the games.”

Gotham generated the bulk of its g+ in passing and the responsibility of interrupting attacks instead fell primarily on Orlando players. Ordinarily, this would be a pretty clear indicator of Gotham dominating the game, but it is important to remember here that Orlando also played a role in allowing Gotham to play this way, and Gotham not managing to score a single goal is a sign of Orlando’s game plan ultimately prevailing.

Gotham’s dominance of this game is definitely a point of optimism going forward—many teams that would not have been able to manage this even against an Orlando side that’s taken their foot off the gas. The team did gel together against a very tough opponent, and had a much more cohesive passing structure than they did in week 1. However, it would be unwise to call Gotham the better team in this matchup. 

With Mandy Freeman out, Lily Reale and Bruninha make their cases as fullback

The position of outside back at Gotham might have more depth than we initially realized. Mandy Freeman was out on a red card suspension (on her birthday, no less), giving Lilly Reale and Bruninha a chance to prove their worth at the position.

Reale, a rookie who typically played as a center back in college, started the game and played as the team’s left back. It was her second professional game and first ever start, and although her own goal was an unfortunate moment, she otherwise had a great performance.

Reale explained how she reacted after the mistake: “It’s my first start, I think it’s not an ideal situation. But it’s not the first time mistakes have happened in games; things like that happen. I was just trying to use my teammates around me, my coaches who are supporting and uplifting me, to bounce back and stay in the right headspace.”

JCA called Reale’s performance after her own goal “outstanding” and praised both her defensive and offensive impact. He said, “I think she controlled the left hand side in the attack, in the defense—the second half with Prisca [Chilufya] coming in with a very dangerous place. Controlled Ally Watt, controlled Prisca. Created the chances.”

Bruninha, who has not been a starter for Gotham recently, came in during the second half to replace Jess Carter, who had received a yellow card. Bruninha also had a great performance, especially when looking at passing impact.

When asked if she would play more as an outside back, Reale said, “Honestly, I’m just kind of the type of player who is trying to adapt to any role that will put me on the field. Whether it’s at center back or outside back, I’m just looking to insert myself into this incredible team wherever I can.”

Gotham still can’t finish—why?

Again, we saw a game where Gotham had significant possession and plenty of opportunities, but still struggled to score.

“I think that's often the last piece of the puzzle that comes for a team is just that clinical, technical execution in the final third, whether that's the final pass or the finish,” said Davidson. “I'm not too worried about it, because I think getting there is the hard part, and we just need to make the right decision—have the technical execution.” She continued to say she believes the team has players that can do that, and thinks they are close to achieving it.

When asked what the team needed to work on, Howell pointed to two key areas of improvement: finishing their chances and staying consistent throughout the game. But she also recognized that this may take time: “It’s so early… Obviously we want to do it as soon as possible, but we also have to realize a lot of us haven't been playing together that long, and so with those things and finishing and being on the same page, it does take a little time. But I'm not worried, because we have great players to come together.”

JCA also said converting chances is what the team needs to work on most: “We need to make sure that we're a little bit better in the final third, because we created a lot of small chances that we needed to convert. We didn't convert any.”

Next, Gotham takes on the Dash in Houston—what does the team need to do to win?

As mentioned above, Gotham urgently needs to figure out how to score goals. Last week, we said that Gotham needed to hold its defense down for a full 90 and they did. If they keep that up against Houston, they should be good, but Houston does have a more dangerous attack now than they did last season.

Amorós said that he sees a chance for a win in Houston, although the Dash have been doing well recently: “I think we can tailor a couple of details going into next game week in Houston. I think we've got a big chance to win. But saying that, they've been fantastic recently. They got some great additions, this has been our job, so it will be a tough game, but one that we're looking forward to.”

Next week, Gotham needs to fix their finishing. Orlando’s defense was really on it this week, and Houston’s defense is not known for its stinginess in the same way—center back Paige Nielsen even put up negative g+ despite scoring a goal (and her lowest g+ category was interrupting)!.

Fullback Avery Patterson, who plays on the right, had a great season last year and that seems to be continuing this season, and their midfield is pretty strong. Gotham’s best bet is channeling attacks through the right to get around the midfield and Patterson. That means that the right back (who could be Jess Carter, Mandy Freeman, Bruninha, or maybe even Lilly Reale) needs to link up well with the right winger (probably Gabi Portilho) to generate attacks.

If they can manage that, we could see Gotham’s first win of the season on Friday.